Critical Financials for Business Explained
Many Owners overlook the vital business health information available by an analysis of your financials It all sounds too hard so keeps getting put off till “later” But your profitability and cashflow is easily monitored for adverse trends Accounting terminology differs between countries and even between accountants. Use our accounting terminology translator for unfamiliar terms […]
How Kaizen Leads to Continuous Incremental Improvement
Most improvement is an incremental process. It is rare to get something completely right the first time so, over time, we improve parts of the system so as to continue to improve the whole. A Japanese word for incremental improvement is “Kaizen”. Read this article for insights into incremental improvement of your business. Incremental improvement, […]
How Kanban Improves Work Flow
Kanbans are a tool for structuring how work flows into the work-in-progress queues so that workers do not get overloaded and can use their time most effectively. Kanbans, and variations on them, are widely used in software projects (e.g. Scrum and Agile) and manufacturing (e.g. Lean and Six Sigma). Blue Belt
How to Track progress with Fever Charts
Very often we would benefit from some visual method of alerting us to the fact that some process is becoming critical and needs our attention. One such visual aid is a “fever chart”.
SM5.0 Theory of Constraints (TOC) and your Bottlenecks
The Theory of Constraints (TOC) has probably had more impact on our prizewinning business than any other management gem! We first heard of it when reading that Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon, required all his managers to read the book that introduced ToC – The Goal. Bezos has done OK so must be something in […]
Manage Workflow and the Local Optima Problem
It is a very widely held belief in managing workflow for business that each station in a production line should be working as hard as it can in order to maximise its efficiency. This might be a car assembly line or an accountant’s office processing tax returns using several different stages in the accounting process. […]
Take Advantage of Agile / Scrum / Kanban to Increase Productivity
In a smaller business there is always plenty to do and many demands on a managers most limited resource; time. Often the owners time is the major bottleneck on the growth of the business (see the introductory article to Theory of Constraints). Plenty of other businesses have struggled with prioritising time before you and several techniques that are very similar have evolved. The three best known of these are named Agile / Scrum / Kanban. Various references cite improvements in team productivity ranging from 25% to 300% by using these methods. This article introduces these concepts and a way of using a free software app named Trello to manage the process. A mix of Yellow and Blue Belt introductory material.
Find Business Risk with Business DashBoard
What is Business Risk and why should you monitor with our Business DashBoards? Your Car’s Dashboard shows Progress and Warns of Looming Problems Smart Business Leaders use Business DashBoards to do the same thing 12Faces is committed to helping you achieve Sustainable Business Success.Sustainable means on-going so you need monitoring tools to check your business’s health.DashBoard is our tool to be confident you […]
80/20 Principle and the Theory of Constraints
This is 12Faces equivalent of Godzilla meets the Hulk! In our language it is the mixing of the 80/20 Rule, which promises up to 16x growth and the Theory of Constraints (TOC) approach, which describes the most liberating aspect of your production line.
How to Improve Cashflow Acceleration
A healthy cashflow is a major contributor to your business’s ability to survive and grow. Do you want to harness the power of your cashflow to grow your business? Are you struggling to pay bills when they fall due? Speeding up cashflow can help with both these goals. Cashflow Acceleration discusses how you can accelerate your cashflow to improve the health and growth rate of your business. Yellow Belt